history

The picture shows a map of the 5 year plan of ISIS/ISIL. Eventually they want the whole World under their flag and their religion, Islam. This is their plan, this is what they tell their recruits all over the World. We can argue all we want about whether ISIS/ISIL really represents Islam or not but this is what they are aiming for. The White House and the State Department spokespersons twist themselves into pretzels trying to explain that this is not what the Muslims religion is about or that we are not at war with Islam, yet what we say had little relevance to what they (ISIL) believes. Despite denials to the contrary and the revisionist history that is taught in today’s schools the spread of the Muslim faith was achieved mostly at the end of a sword, smaller versions of the knifes that being used to decapitate people today.

It is true that most major religions have had dark pasts, where religion was used as a justification for many barbaric deeds, but I find it extremely misleading this great campaign that is going on to pretend that Islam is nothing but a “peaceful” religion, ergo any atrocities committed in the name of Islam by its followers means that they are not truly “Muslim” or not part of its teachings. It is true that most Muslims are not violent or extreme fundamentalist in beliefs that only wish to worship and follow their religion in peace but denying that there are some that are some that feel differently is naïve, and dangerous. The very term “extreme fundamentalist” entails that it is the same religion only an extreme (strict) fundamentalist (earlier, primary, core) version of the religion. Pretending that because the Muslim faith has change into a more moderate version of its earlier self, those that follow the more fundamentalist version are not practicing the same religion is spurious.

The Telegraph in the UK has an article titled “British jihadists: How Britain became the Yemen of the West”, which offers one prescription with dealing with the European jihadists that have joined the fight in the ME, but the article fails in other areas because it is at fault of the same problems that others are having failing to see the influence of religion on the matter, and why it is appealing to some many. The article states the following;

“Dreadful as the murder video of the journalist James Foley was, it is by no means the worst thing posted online by, or involving, British and Western jihadists this week. In the jihadists’ theatre of savagery, Britons and Westerners have for several months taken principal speaking parts. The Foley video’s real significance, perhaps not fully understood in the general shock, is different. Until now, the Islamic State (Isil) has shown little interest in threatening the West. In that video, this started to change, with “John the Beatle” promising the “bloodshed of your people”. The ransom demand sent to Mr. Foley’s family, published yesterday, is even more explicit: “Today our swords are unsheathed towards you, government and citizens alike,” it says.”

This, ignores all the previous threats as non-existent, of course the public way in which it was carried out was bound to get attention. Until now those that have died or believed to have died were all considered a sort of collateral damage to the hostilities in the area. This was very clear into its extent and its message. But, in our secular society everything is viewed through a secular lens and this is where the article fails. The article explains the appeal of the jihadists this way, it was our fault;

“Britain’s key failing is that it was tough where it should have been liberal, and liberal where it should have been tough. It extended detention without trial and stop-and-search: sweeping measures that affected everyone and left Muslims, most of whom are completely blameless, feeling under attack. At the same time, it was ridiculously tolerant and indulgent towards a small minority of Muslim radicals.”

And then dismissively,

“Throughout history, bored, maladjusted and sexually frustrated young men have sought excitement and identity through violence. Where a non-Muslim adolescent might only have the outlet of gang fights in shopping centres or punch‑ups in pubs, young Muslims have the glamour, thrill and wider meaning of Middle East combat. The connections they can make online, with others far away, and the ease of travel in the globalised world complete the picture.”

Kids will be kids, maybe we can create a “time-out” corner for this young adults Kids, to go to so that they won’t join those fighting, killing, raping and bombing with ISIS, but as the author warns we have to be careful so as not to radicalize more susceptible young ones. Now the prescription as the author sees it, is to let the educate the possible recruits,

“A potential British Isil recruit may not be too bothered that he could end up dead. But around half of the Britons who have died so far in Syria and Iraq were killed not by the regime-infidel enemy but by their own side through in-fighting, and if that same potential recruit knew that, it might put a different complexion on it.

If young men in Bradford and east London heard stories from disillusioned British Isil fighters who felt they were treated as cannon fodder that would do 20 times more good than any number of heartfelt condemnations from middle-aged politicians or “community leaders”.

A young man goes to the ME and if he survives and returns we will use him to tell other young men not to go, this is assuming that the young returning will be so disillusioned with their jihad that they will be willing to do so, and completely forgets those that return and tell a completely different story or that want to pursue or start their own jihad closer to home. Winning strategy! Ok, sarcasm off. This is not exactly a new strategy, something similar has been tried here with gang members but for all the hoopla it has had limited success. That has not stop us from trying as Chicago is attempting use past gang members to help its runaway gang problem, again after an earlier initiative in 2012 failed to deliver and crime spiraled out of control. Other cities, Atlanta, Detroit, Charlotte, Houston, Oakland, Cleveland, Little Rock, Memphis, Dallas, to name a few have tried the same approach all with little or limited success as they fail to address core issues that cause the gangs to be attractive, in the first place, to young man. All this amounts to be what St. Augustine described as the “cruel optimism” of people: our desire to believe the best in people and if we just tell them why something is wrong them will stop doing it.

Charles C. W. Cooke writing in the National Review writes, “H. G. Wells’ famous prediction that the First World War would be the “war to end all wars” was met with skepticism by the British prime minister. “This war, like the next war,” David Lloyd George quipped in the summer of 1916, “is a war to end war.” History, he sighed, is not shaped by wishful thinking.”

He continues,

“This week, responding to the news that an American journalist had been executed in Syria by the Islamic State, President Obama contended that the group “has no place in the 21st century.” One wonders: What can this mean? Is this a statement of intent, or is it a historical judgment? Certainly, insofar as Obama’s words indicate a willingness to extirpate the outfit from the face of the Earth, they are useful. If, however, they are merely an attempt to shame the group by explaining that in 2014 the good guys no longer behave in this manner, it is abject and it is fruitless. As a matter of regrettable fact, IS does indeed have a place in the 21st century — and, like the barbarians who hypothetically had “no place” in the Roman Empire, it is presently utilizing that place to spread darkness and despair. Assurances that “our best days are ahead of us,” I’d venture, are probably not going to cut it with the mujahideen.”

“Many among us seem incapable of believing that it is. On Reddit, users are furiously debating whether the footage was faked. Elsewhere, others are seeking explanations as to what might have pushed Foley’s killers to such extraordinary lengths. Perhaps, they ask, IS’s behavior is the fault of something else. The United States’ invasion of Iraq, maybe? Or the legacy of colonialism, or of global inequality? Do these men just need running water? This instinct is folly, the product of the mistaken conviction that man is perfectible and his nature pliant, and that there is something intrinsically different about our age. “The lessons of history endure,” Oklahoma University’s J. Rufus Fears observed beautifully, “because human nature never changed.” “All the human emotions,” Fears added,

Are the same today as in Egypt of the pharaohs or China in the time of Confucius: Love, hate, ambition, the lust for power, kindness, generosity, and inhumanity. The good and bad of human nature is simply poured into new vehicles created by science and technology.

That is the false ideology that must be countered, that because we have become more “civilized” that we have seized to be human, that those instincts and feelings that drove humanity 10,000 years ago or 14 years ago are now different, why? Especially when at the same time we are sending a completely different message as our culture becomes more primitive, when the desires of the flesh are more important, when we excuse those that loot, rob and steal as innocents and denigrate those that try to be productive as evil. We are still human, we can redistribute happiness or success. The thought that if we allowed the Islamist to have their own country will be enough to satisfy them and leave other be is the same wrong ideology as that of those that believe that if we give more to certain groups will satisfy them and lead them to happiness and advancement. History can teach a lot about human nature, what it cannot do is make us listen.

UPDATE

MSNBC host Chris Matthews questioned Monday why ISIS is not grateful to the United States instead of threatening this country, noting “we did their work for them” by removing secular dictators like Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein. H/T The Daily Caller

““What did we do against ISIS except allow them to exist by breaking up the Iraqi government under George W. Bush?” Matthews asked. “We created their opportunity. How are we their enemy? I don’t get it. What did we do to them, to ISIS?”

Mohyledin tried to explain the broader regional context, noting the long-standing support of many secular Arab governments by the United States. But he was quickly cut off.

“Wait a minute, we helped knock off Gaddafi, we took a pretty strong stand against Syria, we knocked off Saddam Hussein,” Matthews interjected. “We knocked off all the secular leaders. Why aren’t the Islamists happy with us?”

“Factually, we did their work for them,” the MSNBC host asserted. “We pulled the rug out from under all these people who were secularists so that these Islamists could grab those countries. What’s the knock, what’s the knock on us?”

He does not understand why the US is being targeted after all not only did we provided the opportunity, but we removed the opposition yet they are not satisfied by our stumbling benevolence. This is a perfect example of the thinking that if we give extremist something that they should be grateful and go on about themselves, but ignoring that root cause of the issues by just addressing one. This is willful ignorance as well as arrogance in that we are in essence saying, here you go young wild child here a country now go play and leave me alone. The problems in the ME date far back, it is not because of Israel, the Palestinian lack of a State, US involvement in the region or British colonialism (though the latter did make a mess of things), they date to the early days of Islam when several tribes in the desert in Arabia and went on to conquer everyone in their path until they were stopped.